By the glow of the campfire — celebrating Canada Day in Toronto (July 1)
Today was a bit of a rough day. I wanted to post a photo of us to remind myself why it’s important to carry on the best way possible, and not to lose focus on quality of life. To remind myself about how much adventure we packed into such a short time, how many places we travelled, how much fun we’d had.
David loved that trip to Toronto. It was his first Canada Day and an absolute riot thanks to Dax, some pineapples, a windy nudist beach, crazy Dah-VEED from Chile, and shameless borrowing from a well-stocked neighbouring campsite. Sergio even made a little find in the sand. (‘Ewww, aren’t you worried about lice???’) Our motley crew of seven laughed uproariously for hours on end and finished off our picnic watching fireworks from our beach on Centre Island. It’s these moments I need to re-conjure when the chips are down, staying mindful that David’s last year was not all about cancer or suffering, and that there are good times ahead, too.
Today was Archive Day. Earlier, I’d archived David’s files from the iMac G5 he was using at home, packed it up, and returned it to the office. Then I archived files from his office G5 computer, burned them to DVD, double-checked that my PowerBook could open them (I had some trouble with some of his iMac files, because it’s running Tiger and I’m still using Panther), and then cleared them off his office machine. I wanted to make sure those archive DVDs were working — I’d be so upset if those files were lost forever. I want to preserve David’s writing. (Ever the anthropologist.)
While at the office, I thought about how the seriousness of the situation shifted from David’s death to the legal predicaments. I’m under tremendous pressure these days and I’m going to buckle under the strain if I don’t stop thinking about it for a while. So tomorrow I will attend the group therapy session for bereavement counselling at 2:45. It’ll do me good to listen to what others are going through; I’m tired of talking about what’s happening to me.